mexigo gomc report
TRANSCRIPT
School of Tourism Mexigo Google Marketing Challenge
Student first name and surname: Robert Ash
Other students involved (if group assignment): George Penfold; James Lawless; Rebecca
Stephens; Alice Tagliaferro; Eduard Danulet
Programme: Retail Management Level: H
Unit Name: Digital Marketing Unit Tutor: Philip Alford
Assignment Marker: Philip Alford
Date Due: 01.05.2015 Date Submitted: 01.05.2015
Declaration:
I have read and understand the University’s regulations on academic offences. I confirm that the
piece of work submitted is to be regarded as the final and complete version of this assignment. The
work submitted is entirely my own work or, where I have referred to the work of others, it is fully
and appropriately referenced.
Signed:
Robert Ash, George Penfold, James Lawless, Rebecca Stephens, Alice
Tagliaferro, Eduard Danulet
Date: 01.05.2015
..
Please note:
Students are expected to keep a copy of all written or electronic coursework which is submitted for
assessment. The University uses a range of methods for detecting breaches of Regulations
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Mexigo Pre-Campaign Report
Client Profile | Mexigo is a relatively young Mexican casual dining restaurant founded in
Southampton in 2012 and is owned by Ian and Lyn Rayner who seized on the potential of the
Mexican food market in the area. Their website [eatmexigo.co.uk]1 was created three years
ago. After success in Southampton, Mexigo expanded into Bournemouth, opening a store in
the town centre.
Mexigo offer their customers a unique experience, which seeks to combine the best of
Mexican food and culture and provide customers with an experiential fast food alternative.
Mexigo are competitively priced within the casual dining market, and seek to drive
differentiation through offering customers a warm, friendly and welcoming dining
environment. They aim to provide the highest quality products with their food locally sourced
from farmers and suppliers, free from colourings, artificial flavourings and genetic
modification.
Marketing Analysis | Mexigo’s most prominent customer segment are those aged between
25 to 40 and these consumers are most likely to be financially stable, with few financial
worries and income above the national average. Mexigo operate in a heavily populated
student area, and continue to focus their targeting towards this consumer group. Income
amongst the student classification is generally low, and most will utilise overdrafts and other
forms of finance to fund their university lifestyle2.
31% of UK consumers eat out at least once a week; with the overall UK restaurant
market expected to reach £52bn by 20173. Market growth figures are expected to double from
1.3% to 2.5% over the next three years, driven by increased spending within the middle
classes. This is further underpinned by the increasing number of affluent consumers who are
cash rich and time poor, who often seek quick and easy meals to suit their busy lifestyle.
Mexigo are currently positioned within the branded casual dining sector, which is worth in
excess of £4bn, with figures predicted to reach an estimated £22bn within the next five
years4.
Speed and convenience is a dominant element within the overall Mexigo offer, with
pre-organised collection times available for customers who are seeking to take away. Mexigo
compete in the gap between with their main fast-food competitor, Subway and local Mexican
1 Mexigo website
2 According to CACI the ACORN consumer classification,
3 According to pwc: UK casual dining market report,
4 According to Ernst and Young: Restaurant and Casual Dining m
arket report,
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restaurants, Chiquitos and Coriander, differentiating themselves through a fresh, social fast-
food alternative.
In 2014, the Bournemouth economy was boosted by £722million from tourism, and a
further £375million from students5. Southampton has a population of over 239,000 and is
recognised as the commercial, cultural and retail capital of the South Coast and contributes
over £2bn to the UK economy each year6. Southampton is home to 42,000 students with both
universities combined whilst 74.7% of the city’s population are classed as economically
active7. Shifts in both weather and demographics provide Mexigo with seasonal
developments and variations within its operating environment. Differences in preferences and
spending behaviours will ultimately dictate both trade and marketing.
Current Marketing | The Mexigo website was initially used for information purposes
regarding company ethos and food but online ordering has since been introduced. Current
web marketing consists mainly of natural inbound marketing relying on the creation of
quality content. Mexigo align their content with customer interests in the form of meal deal
offers, naturally attracting inbound traffic that can be converted into sales and customer
lifetime value with 92.22% of traffic from search. Overall visibility of Mexigo’s website is
respectable but has room for improvement with just 16 external backlinks8 and a Google
PageRank of 2/109.
To enhance website visibility and promote Mexigo URL, social media sharing is
currently accomplished via two Facebook sites for Bournemouth and Southampton (1,194
likes; 1555 likes) and Twitter (1,333 followers). Mexigo uses social media to engage current
and potential customers in the Mexigo experience with the aid of text and food images. The
social media marketing component of the GOMC will give Mexigo a solid foundation in a
new marketing channel through Google+. Offline promotion is implemented through the use
of posters and flyers throughout Bournemouth, Southampton and the universities. Google
Analytics data for Mexigo could not be accessed and therefore a new account has been
created and website traffic will be monitored closely throughout the AdWords campaign.
Conclusion | Mexigo’s pre-dominant online marketing goal is to drive increased traffic to the
website with a strong carry over to the stores. As a young company with a limited marketing
5 According to the tourism office of Bournemouth borough council,
6 According to the Office for National statistics,
7 According to Discover Southampton,
8 According to MajesticSEO and Ahrefs.net site explorer,
9 According to prchecker.info,
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budget, Google AdWords provides a huge sale potential through search and the means to
satisfy the client’s goals.
Proposed AdWords Strategy | The AdWords campaign will be aimed at increasing traffic to
the website whilst improving online ordering and enhancing brand exposure. The AdWords
strategy will be comprised of three search campaigns and seven focused Ad Groups. Table 1
demonstrates the proposed account structure. The Brand Campaign for the homepage
reaches searchers who have heard about the Mexigo name, this campaign is aimed at
improving online ordering. The Students Campaign will target those searching for low-cost
food, meal deals and cheap drinks, and the Young Professionals Campaign will target those
searching for fresh and quick lunchtime food alternatives. Both the Students and Young
Professionals Campaigns will promote the social environment Mexigo offers.
Table 1: Three campaigns, seven AdGroups and sample keywords
Each Ad Group will use [exact] matching, “phrase” matching, +modified +broad
+matching. Negative keywords such as –delivery and –chinese will be used to improve
relevancy. Mexican related words like “fajitas” and “burritos” will be used to reach a wider
audience. Data from Search Query Reports, Analytics, Keyword Planner and Trends will
be used to develop the campaign. Once the campaign begins, Search Terms Report will help
identify additional new keywords and ideas for negative match keywords.
Quality score is essential to ad group performance, enabling higher ad positioning on
Google search. QS will be achieved through increased ad relevancy and CTR maximisation
and will aid in CPC optimisation. Ad serving will be set on even rotation and at least two ads
will be run in each Ad Group at all times to enable A/B testing. The Search Campaign
consisting of three campaigns and seven contextual Ad Groups has been created on the basis
of customer segmentation and product offering. A video campaign will be used to optimise
the budget with a short promotional video on YouTube. Ads will be optimised for desktop,
laptops and mobile devices with each group consisting of 2-3 ads, examples of which can be
seen in Table 2.
Campaign Brand Students Young Professionals
Ad Groups
Mexigo Convenience Availability
Price Food
Location
Drinks
Display Desktop / Mobile Desktop / Mobile Desktop / Mobile
Geo-Targeting Bournemouth / Southampton Bournemouth / Southampton Bournemouth / Southampton
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Table 2: Sample Google AdWords Ads from Students Campaign – Convenience Ad Group.
All three Ad Campaigns will be geo-targeted to Bournemouth and Southampton. Automated
Ad Extensions in the form of consumer ratings, previous visits and social extensions will be
shown beneath ads to improve visibility and CTR.
In terms of budgeting, the Brand Campaign will only be given 10% since it will pre-
dominantly target people who are already aware of Mexigo. The Students Campaign will
receive the largest percentage of 50%, with 40% allotted to the Young Professionals
Campaign. The delegation of budget percentage is based on client goals, higher traffic
estimates, and a greater expected CTR. Overall budget allocation will increase throughout the
campaign in order to take advantage of opportunities as they arise. Account optimisation and
keyword bidding decisions will be based off the analysis of information received from
Google Reporting tools. Manual keyword bidding will be adjusted each day to suit the
changing results of each campaign and correlating Ad Groups. The daily and weekly plans
for spending the budget are presented in Table 3.
Table 3: Proposed Budget by Week and Campaign
To evaluate the campaign’s success, KPIs for account performance will be assessed based on
achieving an average CTR of 1.0%, with a high of 1.5% at an average CPC of no more than
$0.65. A quality score of 6 or above will be sought in order to improve ad rankings and CPC.
Progress will be fed back to the client on a weekly basis.
Search Query: “fast mexican food” Search Query: “mexican fast food”
Brand Student Young Professionals Total by
Week 10% 50% 40%
Week 1: 20% $5.00 ($0.71/day) $25.00 ($3.58/day) $20.00 ($2.86/day) $50.00
Week 2: 20% $7.50 ($1.07/day) $37.50 ($5.36/day) $25.00 ($3.57/day) $75.00
Week 3: 50% $12.50 ($1.79/day) $62.50 ($8.93/day) $50.00 ($7.14/day) $125.00
Total by Campaign $25.00 ($3.57/day) $125.00 ($17.86/day) $95.00 ($13.57/day) $250.00
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Mexigo Post-Campaign Report
Executive Summary
Campaign Overview | Mexigo Burrito Bar is a causal dining restaurant located in
Southampton and Bournemouth, UK. Mexigo’s mission is to combine the best of Mexican
food and culture to provide a unique experience to customers with an experiential fast food
alternative. They provide the highest quality products with locally sourced produce from
farmers and suppliers, free from colouring, artificial flavourings and genetic modification, all
while remaining competitive on price. Since Mexigo operates with a limited marketing
budget, Google AdWords is an ideal marketing platform to continue growing the reach of the
business in a cost-effective manner. Three campaigns were created based on their alignment
with Mexigo’s business goals as well as their likelihood to capture the widest audience within
the geo-targeted locations: Brand Campaign, Students Campaign, Young Professionals
Campaign. The goals established for the campaign were to achieve an average click-through
rate (CTR) of 1.0% at an average cost-per-click (CPC) of $0.65, whilst maintaining a quality
score of 6/10 or higher.
Key Results | Overall, the established goals were not achieved, despite individual successes
within certain campaigns. The entire allocated $250 budget was spent on achieving an
average CTR of 0.38% by obtaining 30,270 impressions and 114 clicks at an average CPC of
$1.88. The Brand Campaign was most successful in terms of achieving a 2.0% CTR, whilst
the Online Video Campaign assisted in developing brand exposure further, achieving an
average view-rate of 10.72% at an average cost-per-view (CPV) $0.12. Despite the Students
and Young Professionals campaigns contributing to 29,221 of the overall impressions, they
only achieved a CTR of 0.29% and 0.36% respectively. This was due to a perceived low ad-
relevancy as a result of website text content being predominantly image-based, restricting
visibility on Google’s search terms. However, diverting ad URLs to text-heavier pages
minimised the damage caused.
Conclusion | The three-week AdWords campaign did not reach the established goals however
continual optimisation in the form of daily manual keyword bid adjustments, budget
reallocation, A/B ad testing, pausing of underperforming AdGroups, and structural
reorganisation based on suggestions from the Opportunities tab endeavoured to optimise the
performance of the campaign.
Future Recommendations | Business expansion is a direct product of visibility and Google
AdWords provides a unique platform for achieving this goal as was proven through the
success of the Brand Campaign and the online promotional video. It is recommended that
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Mexigo firstly undertake a website redevelopment to incorporate a larger volume of text
content that will improve relevancy of keywords and subsequently ads. Subsequently, it is
recommended Mexigo continue to expand their online presence through the use of AdWords
and Social Media as well as monitoring expansion via Google Analytics.
Industry Component
Campaign Overview | The three week AdWords campaign ending 1st April 2015 was
designed to achieve Mexigo’s online marketing goals of increasing website traffic and
enhancing brand exposure. Three campaigns were created around unique landing pages
within the client’s website: Brand Campaign, Students Campaign and Young Professionals
Campaign. Figure 1 demonstrates the final account structure. In total, the three campaigns
included 16 ad groups, 27 ads, and 240 keywords.
Figure 1: AdWords Account Structure
Account Structure
Brand
Students
Young Professionals
1 Ad Group
6 Ad Groups
9 Ad Groups
2 Ads
11 Ads
14 Ads
38 Keywords
104 Keywords
198 Keywords
Based upon search data from Google’s Keyword Planner, campaigns in figure 1 were selected
to reach the widest audience possible within the geo-targeted area of Southampton and
Bournemouth, obtaining the greatest increase in traffic to Mexigo’s website in the most cost-
effective manner. Overall success was measured in comparison to the original goals for the
AdWords campaign, which was to achieve an average click-through-rate (CTR) of 1.0% by
obtaining the highest possible impressions and clicks at an average cost-per-click (CPC) of
$0.65. Originally, the $250 budget was to be spent in gradually increased increments per
week at 20%, 30% and 50%. Table 4 shows the resulting budget amount spent by each
campaign.
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Table 4: Total Budget Spent by Campaign per Week
Brand Students Young
Professionals Video
Total by
Week
Week 1: (12.03.15-
18.03.15) $1.98 $22.03 $9.30 $0.91 $34.22
Week 2: (19.03.15-
25.03.15) $5.75 $40.07 $26.02 $9.87 $81.71
Week 3: 26.03.15-
01.04.15) $4.80 $49.54 $54.57 $25.50 $134.41
Total by Campaign $12.53 $111.64 $89.09 $36.28 $249.54
After week one, the daily budget for each campaign was adjusted according to CTR and
percentage of total clicks received.
Our team monitored all campaigns and suggested enhancements, but adjustments
were centralised to two team members to maintain accuracy and efficiency. A checklist of
daily tasks to complete was created, including adjusting daily budget, adjusting keyword bids
and pausing low volume keywords. The Search Terms Report was regularly checked to
identify new keywords opportunities.
Evolution of the Campaign Strategy | Due to budget constraints, it was predicted in the first
week we would achieve approximately 102 clicks by calculating the average CPC in
alignment with weekly budgets. However as a result of continually monitoring and
optimising budget usage, this target was exceeded by 11.76%. The Students Campaign and
Young Professionals Campaign received limited activity within the first week as budget
constraints led to low ad visibility. The decision was made to switch from Google’s
automated bidding to a manual bidding strategy in order to show the most effective ads more
frequently. This enabled the progression of the best-performing ads on a CTR basis, to be
featured on the first page of Google Search results.
Successful development of the campaign strategy resulted from the creation of new
Ad Groups based upon suggestions from the Opportunities tab and Search Terms Report
data. Within the Students Campaign, Price Bournemouth and Price Eat ad groups were
generated, contributing to 11.54% of the Students Campaign final CTR.
Three campaigns were run in the Google Search Network, whilst the Online Video Network
was explored with a professionally produced video advertisement, created to assist the Brand
Campaign in improving brand exposure. The Video Campaign provided a low cost, high
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Clicks Impr. CTR Avg. Pos. Avg. CPC Cost
Brand Campaign 21 1,049 2.0% 2.7 $0.60 $12.53
Student
Campaign 53 17,977 0.29% 2.5 $2.11 $111.64
Young
Professionals
Campaign
40 11,244 0.36% 1.8 $2.25 $89.89
Total exc. Vid
Campaign 114 30,270 0.4% 2.3 $1.88 $214.06
Clicks Impr. Views View
Rate Avg. CPV Cost
Video Campaign 13 2,751 295 10.72% $0.12 $36.28
Total Inc. Video
Campaign 127 33,021 - - - $250.34
coverage channel, achieving a view rate of 10.72% at an average CPV of $0.12, resulting in a
4.07% CTR over the course of the final two weeks.
Keywords were initially devised from text within the ‘Menu’ page with the goal of
enhancing relevancy and ultimately quality score. However, text content was predominantly
image-based and so we discovered this restricted visibility on Google’s search terms. To
minimise damage, ads were re-directed to other text-heavier pages, however the problem
could not be directly resolved as these pages contained minimal keyword opportunities.
Key Results | The Mexigo AdWords campaign increased page views by 127, with an average
CTR of 0.38% by obtaining 30,270 impressions and 114 clicks at an average CPC of $1.88.
Mobile devices drove the majority of traffic, with 62% of clicks generated through a
smartphone or tablet. Mobile sessions were a fundamental component of the campaign,
delivering an average CTR of 1.2%, +0.8% ahead of the campaign average. Geographically,
56% of traffic was made from the Bournemouth area, driven by a strong performance within
the Student Campaign within the region, which delivered 28% of the total number of clicks.
This is in line with industry reports suggesting 18-25 year olds are the highest users of mobile
and tablet devices10
and are more likely to use such devices when browsing for restaurants
and bars11
. Table 5 outlines the AdWords performance details by campaign.
Table 5: Overall Performance Summary
10
As cited by Mintel’s Social and Network trends 2014 11
As cited by Mintel’s 2014 digital marketing trends
9
The Brand Campaign had the highest CTR due to the greatest relevancy of its
keywords, such as ‘mexigo’ and ‘mexican recipes’, which delivered an average click through
of 10.8% and 6.5% respectively. The Brand Campaign consistently delivered a high CTR at
a low average CPC of $0.60. This was accomplished through the application of broad key
terms and a strong click through of ads, as seen in Table 5. The Student and Young
Professionals campaigns delivered a significant proportion of overall impressions and thus
achieving the goal of increased brand exposure. Although the ability to convert into site visits
was not fully utilised, with an average CTR of 0.29% and 0.36% respectively.
Figure 2 highlights the increase in clicks gained throughout the campaign, and
illustrates the volatility within the average CPC during the allocated time period. This was
partially driven by high value keywords such as ‘mexican dining’ and ‘takeaways’ within the
Young Professionals Campaign. Figure 3 indicates a negative correlation between budget
and the average position of ads, demonstrating the relationship between allocated budget and
ad exposure.
Ensuring the campaign utilised relevant ads was critical to its success. A keyword
combination proven to be successful was the word ‘bars’ followed by some indicator of
location such as ‘in Bournemouth’. An example of an ineffective keyword was the use of the
word ‘quick’ to push through traffic to the Students Campaign, which on average received a
CTR of 0.0%.
Table 6 below illustrates the most effective campaigns with clicks used as the
measureable factor. The reasonable success of these ads can be attributed to a number of
factors highlighted through A/B testing and keyword bidding. Enriching the customer
experience was identified as the integral reason behind the overall campaign success, with
industry expert’s eConsultancy suggesting the integration of call to actions essential12
.
12
According to eConsultancy
$0.00
$50.00
$100.00
$150.00
1.5
2.0
2.5
Week 1 Week 2 Week 3
Figure 3: Avg. Pos and Budget by week
Avg. Pos. Budget
$1.55
$1.60
$1.65
$1.70
-
50
100
Week 1 Week 2 Week 3
Figure 2: Clicks and Avg. CPC by week
Clicks Avg. CPC
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Call to actions and customer-focused communications such as Order online and
Lunch time meal deals were used respectively. In addition, the team adjusted the keyword
bids using the Estimated Top Page Bid column to ensure the ads achieved optimum visibility.
The average ad position was 2.2 across all campaigns, which was deemed acceptable and in
line with positional guidelines suggested by Google13
.
Keywords that received impressions but no clicks were paused as they represented an
inefficient spending of the budget. Quality Scores lower than 5/10 and low search volumes
were kept active because some of them obtained an acceptable CTR such as ‘Mexigo
Southampton’ with a 6.67% click through.
As a result, the overall account achieved its highest daily CTR on the Saturday 28th
March of 4.42% shown in figure 3 above.
Conclusion | Overall, the AdWords campaign performance did not reach the established
targets for CTR by 0.62%. The entire $250 budget was spent on achieving an average CTR of
0.38% on the Search Network, by obtaining 30,270 impressions and 114 clicks at an average
CPC of $1.88. The low CTR and clicks can be contributed to the Mexigo website design
where words are displayed within an image, resulting in low quality scores due to a perceived
low relevance of ads by Google. The low quality score led to a higher than anticipated
average CPC, $1.23 higher than the forecasted $0.65. The development of the video
campaign, with a view rate of 10.72% and 4.07% CTR provided a low cost method for better
utilising the budget at an average CPV of $0.12.
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As cited by Google AdWords guidelines
Campaign Ad Copy Clicks CTR Avg. CPC
Student Campaign
17 0.54% $2.26
Brand Campaign
15 4.42% $0.60
Young Professionals
Campaign
10 0.96% $2.28
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Future Industry Recommendations | In order for AdWords to be a viable marketing tool
for Mexigo, website development is crucial. It is recommended Mexigo realign their
marketing strategy to create unity within their digital marketing channels, such as AdWords,
YouTube and Social Media. Maintaining Google AdWords is an essential element within the
overall marketing strategy, continuing to focus on the primary marketing objectives of
increasing web traffic and brand exposure.
Learning Component
Learning Objectives and Outcomes | The Google Online Marketing challenge was a great
opportunity for the team to develop Google AdWords knowledge, such as how to utilise tools
such as the Opportunities tab and Keyword Planner, as well as respecting the importance of
strict budget planning and allocation. By gaining professional experience in client interaction,
the team was able to provide the client with valuable, authentic material in line with the
company goals. The team set the personal objective of heightening and developing individual
knowledge of Google AdWords and its complimentary components.
Building a relationship with the client enabled us to clearly define a set of common objectives
beneficial to both parties. Overall, the team developed a sound understanding of account
structure, optimisation techniques, and paid search performance metrics that can be
transferred to the client.
Broad match keywords were used throughout the campaign as they provided a greater
insight into what terms were actively being searched. Due to inconsistency within search
terms, this was seen as the most effective keyword type as “phrase “and [exact] search types
could have limited impressions. During the second week of the campaign, the team made the
decision to pause underperforming keywords and ads with a CPC in excess of $2.95, with
lower than 3 clicks. This resulted in a reduction of the average CPC to $1.60 achieved in
week two, as illustrated in Figure 2 above. The geo-targeting impacted the reach of the
campaign but enabled ads to remain in line with the client’s desire to attract students and
young professionals from the local area.
Group Dynamics | Effective work prioritisation was a considerable factor our group needed
to take into account. Individual members of the group had various external work
commitments, which created conflicts in their ability to complete work on time. This initial
finding required our team to take a proactive approach to workload management. As a team,
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we consulted and arranged deadlines which were firstly tailored to each group members
workload and secondly in line with our overall group deadlines. An integral part of this
process was aligning the skillset of individual team members to the required tasks, ensuring
work produced was of the highest quality. The group members’ expertise included: Project
Management, Business Analysis, Marketing and Creativity. Overall the GOMC was a
thoroughly enjoyable and ultimately rewarding experience that enabled our team to work
with a live client and create a successful campaign that was mutually beneficial for both
parties involved.
Client Dynamics | Despite the group’s preconceptions of communication difficulties,
Mexigo were extremely supportive throughout the campaign, ensuring a continual dialog on
performance and strategy. The group’s relationship with Mexigo was fundamentally
influenced by their recent expansion into the Bournemouth area, seeking to exploit not only
on the campaign itself but the groups knowledge of the local community and consumer. With
minimal expertise and a relatively small marketing budget, Mexigo empowered the group to
take full control over the businesses marketing strategy, which provided a competitive
advantage as the team identifies with the targeted Students and Young Professionals customer
segments. A strong working relationship with the Mexigo owners; Ian and Lyn was forged as
a result, which filtered down to front of house staff enabling the group to create a working
relationship with all members of the operation. The group are satisfied with the choice of
client and the working relationship that was built throughout the campaign.
Future Learning Recommendations | Prior to the launch of the campaigns, the team
devised a checklist of daily tasks to record any changes made during each session in
AdWords. However, the checklist was not utilised to its full capacity and in some instances
screenshots were taken of changes to keyword bidding, resulting in confusion over who had
altered what and when. If we were to participate in the GOMC again, the team would be
stricter in recording daily changes to gain clearer insight into what impacted the campaign
results. A Google Analytics account would have been set up in advance in order to monitor
the impact AdWords had on website traffic. Overall, this challenge has provided the team
with a deeper understanding of the impact digital marketing can have on attracting customers
and influencing purchases. It has also provided authentic experience using Google AdWords
and how team dynamics are a large factor of getting the most out of campaigns.
Robert Ash, George Penfold, James Lawless, Rebecca Stephens, Alice Tagliaferro, Eduard Danulet